Mystics & Statistics

A blog on quantitative historical analysis hosted by The Dupuy Institute

Belarus?

It looks like the next potential conflict in Eastern Europe is over Belarus. Russia has had more than one conflict with Georgia (population 3.7 million) that has split off two separate states from it (Abkhazia and Ossetia). Both of these conflicts pre-date Putin’s presidency of Russia. Russia more recently has had a conflict with Ukraine (population 42 million, excluding Crimea and Sevastopol) that split off two “Peoples Republics” (Donetsk and Lugansk) and annexed Crimea. Pre-dating Putin is the Transnistia Republic cut out of Moldava (population 2.7 excluding Transnistria, which is 0.5 million).

Now, apparently Russia and Belarus are in a discussion over economic integration that the dictator of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko (age 65), is not too happy with. He claims that his talks last week with Putin is not about “integration” of their economies but about  “merging.” Meanwhile Russia has cut the oil to Belarus, forcing it to get it from Norway and other places.

So what is Belarus exactly? It is a country of only abut 9.5 million people. Not very big, although not very densely populated. It has one major city (Minsk) with an urban population of around two million. Its second largest city is Homeyel (Gomel) with a only half million. For all practical purposes, it is an old style city state, with one major urban area and lot of land. It is 208 thousand sq. kilometers, or about the size of the state of Kansas or Nebraska. To compare:

 

……………………………..,……Belarus…………Russia………….Ukraine
Population (millions)………………..9.5……………147………………42

GDP (billions)………………………60……………1,657…………….134
Per Capita…………………….$6,477………….$11,305………..$3,220

Area (thousand sq. km.)………..208…………..17,098…………….604

 

Part of the problem is that Lukashenko has been dictator of Belarus for the last 20 years. He is not exactly close to the U.S., the E.U. or hardly anyone else. He is kind of standing alone, which is not a very good position to be in when one of your neighbors is at least 15 times larger (and over 27 times richer) .

We shall see how this develops, but an independent Belarus always looked a little improbable. It was briefly independent once before, in 1918. The Belarus Rada still maintains itself as a government-in-exile, located now in Vancouver Canada. This is actually the oldest remaining government-in-exile.

Coronavirus update

Well, I was concerned about the Coronavirus from the start, and so far, it unfortunately seems to be living up to my concerns. This morning, according to the reported stats…..there have been 24,607 reported cases (which is about 3 times as many as reported SARS cases) and 494 deaths. The concern and question is about the trends….is the disease expanding linearly or geometrically? Here is the latest graph from the John Hopkins University site:

This is from this site: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

Of course this is assuming that the reported statistics are correct. There is some question about that: https://www.yahoo.com/news/china-arrested-doctors-warned-coronavirus-111252311.html

To summarize:

  1. Last December eight doctors and medical technicians became concerned about a developing SARS-like disease. They were arrested on 1 January 2020 for having “spread rumors.”
  2. There is still on-going censorship efforts concerning the virus in China.
  3. Not discussed in this article, but there are people claiming there could be over 75,000 cases: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/coronavirus-cases-in-wuhan-could-be-over-75000-research-model-reveals-/

The tradition is that these communist governments tend to initially try to cover-up and minimize these disasters (i.e. SARS, Chernobyl). Not that democratic governments also don’t sometimes try to minimize the scale of these problems, but the free press does help keep them truthful.

 

 

TMCI is officially closing this year

The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) is officially closing this year. The TMCI webpage is here: http://militaryconflict.org/. The website had not been updated since 2014.

TMCI was founded in 1979 by Dr. Donald S. Marshall and Trevor Dupuy. They were concerned by the inability of existing Defense Department combat models to produce results that were consistent or rooted in historical experience. The organization was a non-profit, interdisciplinary, informal group that avoided government affiliation in order to maintain an independent perspective and voice. It’s object was to advance public understanding or organized warfare in all its aspects. Most of the initial members were drawn from the ranks of operations analyst experienced in quantitative historical study and military operations research.

The organization conducted over 60 general meetings over its 41 years of existence, usually hosting two meetings a year. I gather in the early years, some of its meetings had over a hundred attendees, but in recent times it was a core group of around 20. There were also attempts to get funding from DOD to support it, which never occurred.

The TMCI eventually ended up being run by Roger Mickelson. During this stage, it actually wrote and published three books: 1) Anatomy of a Combat Model published in 1995, 2) A Concise Theory of Combat published in 1997, and 3) A Philosophy of War published in 2013.

The Anatomy of a Combat Model was written by Lawrence J. Low and is available from the TMCI site at http://militaryconflict.org/Anatomy%20of%20a%20Combat%20Model_1.pdf  I am not sure it will continue to be available through this website. It does not appear to be posted elsewhere.

A Concise Theory of Combat was written by Edmund L. Dubois, Wayne P. Hughes Jr., and Lawrence J. Low. Link to it is here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40235431-a-concise-theory-of-combat and I gather can be downloaded from here: https://www.scribd.com/doc/47751814/A-Concise-Theory-of-Combat and here: https://core.ac.uk/display/36731683 . I cannot vouch for the validity of either of these sites.

I cannot find a link to A Philosophy of War. I have my hard copy but cannot find where it can be obtained on line. It is not on Amazon.

Roger Mickelson was killed in 2016 in a car accident and while TMCI continued, it seemed to have lost focus. Some of the people involved in it, Wayne Hughes and Chuck Hawkins, also recently passed away.

TMCI never really accomplished what it hoped to do. Partly because it never got funding and nor had a staff. As such, there was little work done between meetings and everything was volunteer only. You get what you pay for with volunteer work. If the DOD feels that there is a need for independent analysis of combat and the development of a theory of combat, then they probably need to fund such an effort. So far, they have not.

A few related posts:

The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) Will Meet in October

Three Presentations

The Elements of Trevor Dupuy’s Theory of Combat

World War IV

Roger Mickelson (Col, USA): “Final Change of Command”

So, Who’s Your Favorite Admiral?

Charles Hawkins passed away

Published Obituary for Charles Hawkins

John Honig passed away

John Honig passed away

John Honig passed away on 30 January 2020 at the age of 96. He was one of the regular attendees of The Military Conflict Institute (TMCI) in addition to being one of the founding members of the Military Operations Research Society (MORS)

His obituary is definitely worth a read. He was born in Austria in 1923:  https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/washingtonpost/obituary.aspx?fhid=10909&n=john-honig&pid=195250345

His has donated papers to the Holocaust Museum: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn692234

John Honig interview: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/45464588.pdf

 

Blast Injuries in Iraq

Photograph taken by Official War Photographer at an Australian Advanced Dressing Station near Ypres in 1917. The wounded soldier in the lower left of the photograph has the “thousand yard stare” indicative of shell-shock.

There were at least 50 people who suffered blast injuries from the Iranian missile attacks in Iraq. These are referred to by the acronym TBI for traumatic brain injuries. There were around 200 people in that blast zone who were screened for symptoms.

See: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/28/politics/50-injuries-iran-strike/index.html

Of those 18 were evacuated to Germany for further evaluation and treatment and I gather at least 8 of these were then evacuated to the U.S. If the injury was serious enough to require evacuation out of the war zone, then this is clearly something a whole lot worse than a “headache.”

Blast injuries have been an ongoing problem in our combat forces for the better part of two decades. Some of this has been brought about by the extensive use of IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of these IEDs are tied to artillery shells and other large amounts of explosives, resulting in a significant blast. People can be “lightly wounded” in the traditional sense, and still have significant injuries from the blast.

Added to that, we now have a better understanding of the significance of these brain injuries, including concussions. This is not only from combat, but also from such contact sports as American Football and hockey. Hockey has instituted significant concussion protocols and this is now something that is monitored at both the junior levels and more advance levels of hockey. It is no more a matter of just getting rattled, shaking it off and keep on playing. American Football is still struggling to address these issues, especially with the large number of professional players reporting long term brain injuries. Needless to say, brain injures from blast can be significant and have long-term debilitating affects.

This of course is not entirely new, but we are just now beginning to understand the full extent and nature of TBIs. In World War I they used to talk about “shell shock.”

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_shock

Interesting Article on the Chinese Government

Interesting article on the Chinese government and the Chinese public perceptions of it. From the New York Times: Virus Crisis Exposes Cracks in China’s Facade of Unity

The main point of the article is that the government has already come under criticism for the crisis that has developed in Wunan. One post on a social media site stated:

The current system looks so vibrant yet it’s shattered completely by a governance crisis. We game up our rights in exchange for protection. But what kind of protection is it? Where will our long-lasting political apathy lead us?

“The post was shared over 7,000 times and liked 27,000 times before censors deleted it,” according to the article.

This reinforces the argument I was making in the fourth point, Internal Stability in China, in yesterday’s post.

Map of Coronavirus

This link leads to a map of the Coronavirus. It is from Johns Hopkins University: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

As of 11:00 PM 28 January they were reporting 6,057 confirmed cases and 132 deaths.

 

P.S. As of 9:00 PM 29 January they were reporting 7,783 confirmed cases and 170 deaths. To date, no deaths have been outside of China. Below is a graph of “total confirmed cases” from that site:

P.P.S. As of 9:30 PM 30 January they were reporting 9,776 confirmed cases and 213 deaths. To date, no deaths have been outside of China. Below is a graph of “total confirmed cases” from that site:

The Snowballing Effects of a Virus?

Again, this is not my area of expertise, since I’m mostly into Pfizer stock speculation and such, but as the Coronavirus does not seem to be going away any time soon, probably worthwhile to look at the effects of such a disease if it continues to expand, beyond the issues of health and mortality.

Economic Effects in China: Right now, around 60 million people are in partial or full lock down. The current population of China is over 1.4 billion, so this is 4% of the population. So lets say that their economic activity is reduced by at least 20% (it may be more). Let us say this is a ripple effect that impacts three times that amount of people (as they certainly trade with others). The most immediate economic impact of the virus is on consumption and travel. So 0.12 x 0.8 = 0.96 or basically a 1% decline in the Chinese economy/growth rate. The Chinese economy is growing at around 6% a year. Now, if this virus lasts for three months, it is simply a blip on the charts. If it lasts the better part of a year, we will see a reduction in the growth rate of the economy. On the other hand, if the virus continues to spread and more people and cities are on lock down, then the economic impact could be more significant.

Note: These are all the companies who have shut down operations….

International Economics: The Chinese economy now makes up 16% of the world economy. They are certainly the manufacturing hub in many industries (for example, my first Kursk book was printed there). So, any disruption in the Chinese economy will result in a decline worldwide. These fears were amplified this last Monday morning when the DOW declined by over 500 points, which is almost a 2% drop. Now it was recorded somewhat and as of 1:00 PM on Monday was at 337 (1.16%). Still this shows the economic impact on the markets. Of course, the market going down 1 or 2% does not mean the economy is in decline, but it does indicate that this is a global concern.

Oil Prices: U.S. oil prices were down on Monday morning by nearly 2% also to $53.13 a barrel. Now oil prices directly affect consumers as we can see the fluctuations from day to day at the gas pump, but…..if also significantly impacts the economy of Russia, which relies heavily upon taxes on oil and natural gas for its budget. As of 1 PM on Monday, the exchange rate for rubles to dollars went from 62 rubles to 63 rubles.

Internal Stability in China: Keep in mind that China had a major internal unrest incident in 1989 with Tiananmen Square. They have been hesitant since then to run over people with tanks. More to the point, the continued growth of the Chinese economy has dampened much of the political and internal unrest, and will probably continue to do so as long as the economy continues to grow. Many people (and I am one of them) does consider that the development of a capitalist economy under control of a communist regime is a fundamental contradiction that at some point will lead to political unrest. This was the case 30 years ago, and if the economy stagnates or decline, I have no doubt will be the case again. Added to that, right now there has been an extended pro-democracy protest in the Chinese city of Hong Kong that has not been resolved. Is this an isolated case, being a former British colony; or is it the first of many others? I do get the sense that the stability of China is not guaranteed and could be quickly become an issue if the economy declines.

Internal Stability of Russia: The Russian economy is tied to oil prices, maybe not as much as Iran and Saudi Arabia, but enough that this is a big issue. In 2012 oil, gas and petroleum products account for over 70% of their total exports. Russia already had one extended economic decline from 2014-2015 where is actually saw its GDP decline by 3.7% in 2015. This is significant. We do note today that the when the stock markets declined by over 1%, the price of oil declined by 2% and the ruble declined by 2% also. So……what happens if the decline continues? The Russian GDP grew by only 1.2% in 2019. The next Russian election is in 2024, so they have some time to ride out any problems, but as they are busy changing the constitution into who knows what; then if we actually do see a significant decline in the Russian economy over an extended time, then the elections, or even internal stability, could become an issue.

Ukraine and sanctions and such: Not unrelated to the Russian economic problems are the sanctions imposed by the U.S. and European as a result of its actions in Ukraine, including the seizure of Crimea. This have been an issue since then, both in Russia and in U.S. politics. Needless to say, if the Russian economy declines, these issues will remain at the forefront.

Iran and Iraq: Cannot help but notice that Iran has a lot of internal turmoil and unrest, in addition to occasional head-to-head confrontations with the U.S. The Iranian economy is also heavily tied to the price of oil. Nothing fuels a protest movement like a declining economy. One could also say the same of Iraq. Of course, we have troops in Iraq.

Plague?

This is far from my area of expertise, but I am following the spread of the Coronavirus with concern. It has already killed over 50 80 106 people in China, forced them to shut down a city of 11 million people (Wuhan); and now there are three five cases in the U.S., three in France, almost 2,000 more than 2,700 confirmed cases in China (more than 4,500 on Tuesday, 28 Jan.), more than 40 confirmed cases outside of China in 13 places (more than 70 confirmed cases in 17 places on Tuesday, 28 Jan.). They say nearly 60 million people in China are on partial or full lock down in multiple cities. What we know

This is tragic but the worse may yet to come. The human toll is going to tragically get worse. The virus apparently can spread before symptoms show. One wonders how bad it is going to be before it is contained.

There could also be a significant economic cost. Considering that nearly 60 million people are on partial or full lock down….what does this do to production and work? As the virus spread, what is the economic cost? One can envision a scenario where Chinese economy stalls or declines and there is criticism of the government response (which is almost inevitable if this continues to expand). Does this created additional unrest or internal problems in China? Does this further impact the Chinese economy? Would a decline of the Chinese economy (which is 16% of the world economy) result in a stalling or decline of many other economies in the world? One could spin out a downward scenario here.

Don’t want to be alarmist, but this does concern me. We have not had a major world-wide “plague”  since the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1920. According to some accounts it affected up to 500 million people and killed 50 million or more. More recently was SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) from 2002-2004. This came out of China, transferred to humans from bats in Yunnan province. It produced 8,098 documented cases resulting in 774 deaths in 17 countries. It was completely contained and no new cases have been reported since 2004. There has also been MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) or the “Camel flu” from 2012 to the present which has affected almost 2,000 people with a mortality rate of 36% among those diagnosed! It was not just confined to the Middle East with an outbreak in South Korea in 2015 that killed 36. There may be a large number of milder undiagnosed cases. This disease is still not contained.

The Coronavirus will hopefully be contained soon like SARS was, but the scenarios are frightening if it is not.

 

 

P.S. In the news Monday morning: Dow falls more than 400 points as the coronavirus outbreak worsens

 

Is this my last Kursk book?

The Aces at Kursk book may be my last Kursk book I will do for a while, depending on demand. From my original mega-book I have prepared two books, The Battle of Prokhorovka and Aces at Kursk. From the original book I can prepare two more books: The Battle of Tolstoye Woods and The Belgorod Offensive. These four books would effectively complete the serialization of my original book. I could also create one additional book, which would be a 300-page book for a more general audience addressing the entire battle in the south.

Also in my files are the German and Soviet research materials and draft texts to produce two or three others books covering the Soviet offensive to take Kharkov in February 1943, the German counteroffensive to retake Kharkov in March 1943 and the Soviet offensive to take Kharkov in August 1943. As part of our urban warfare work, we pulled up the unit records for both sides for the three battles in and around Kharkov in 1943. The fighting in February and March of 1943 was the fighting that immediately preceded the Battle of Kursk. They are probably best covered in a single book. The fighting in August 1943 is a continuation of the Battle of Kursk and is considered part of the Battle of Kursk by Soviet historians.

This would potentially allow for a series of six to eight books covering most of the fighting on the Russian Front in the south from February to August 1943. But I am not sure whether I should do that or move onto other projects. Right now, leaning towards moving onto other projects.